STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Five-year-old Sophia Bohrer took up the palette knife. Then she dipped her finger in the paint. And, finally, she left her mark on the canvas.
By the time she finished, a small crowd had assembled to applaud of “Pink Eclipse.”
Bohrer has gotten an early start on her masterpieces, thanks to her grandmother Deborra Marshall Bohrer. And Saturday, she painted at Lipton Fine Arts in Ketchum while viewers milled around looking at her grandmother’s big bold works depicting sandhill cranes and flowers from her garden along Trail Creek.
Bohrer was showing her work as one of 50 artists participating in the Wood River Valley Studio Tour, which continues today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“I’ve been painting forever,” said Sophia, who started out finger painting on a canvas laid flat her grandmother’s table. “It’s fun.”
“It has made her more observant,” said Deborra Bohrer. “She pays attention to everything around her from the fur on our dog Fletcher to the nose on our other dog Pierre.”
Down in Ketchum’s light industrial district Christine Warjone showed new minimalist works showing athletes and musicians in negative.
“These show athleticism of people like ballerina against a calm, quiet space,” she said.
The free tour continues today. Bellevue artists, in particular, are inviting people to avoid the eclipse traffic and come south.
Tour maps are available at the Ketchum Visitor Center in the Starbucks building on Sun Valley Road, as well as the Wood River Valley Studio headquarters in the Ketchum Conference Center in the Walnut Avenue Mall on Sun Valley Road.